Watch Your Little Ones.

[bozodog]

Snopes

Ok. I don't know where to begin because the last 2 days of my life

have been such a blur. Yesterday, My youngest daughter Halle who is

4, was rushed to the emergency room by her father for being severely

lethargic and incoherent. He was called to her school by the school

secretary for being "very VERY sick." He told me that when he arrived

that Halle was barely sitting in the chair. She couldn't hold her own

head up and when he looked into her eyes, she couldn't focus them.

He immediately called me after he scooped her up and rushed her to the

ER. When we got there, they ran blood test after blood test and did

x-rays, every test imaginable. Her white blood cell count was normal,

nothing was out of t he ordinary. The ER doctor told us that he had

done everything that he could do so he was sending her to Saint

Francis for further test.

Right when we were leaving in the ambulance, her teacher had come to

the ER and after questioning Halle's classmates, we found out that she

had licked hand sanitizer off her hand. Hand sanitizer, of all

things. But it makes sense. These days they have all kinds of

different scents and when you have a curious child, they are going to

put all kinds of things in their mouths.

When we arrived at Saint Francis, we told the ER doctor there to check

her blood alcohol level, which, yes we did get weird looks from it but

they did it. The results were her blood alcohol level was 85% and

this was 6 hours after we first took her. There's no telling ! What

it would have been if we would have tested it ! At the first ER.

Since then, her school and a few surrounding schools have taken this

out of the class rooms of all the lower grade classes but what's to

stop middle and high schoolers too? After doing research off the

Internet, we have found out that it only takes 3 squirts of the stuff

to be fatal in a toddler. For her blood alcohol level to be so high

was to compare someone her size to drinking something 120 proof.

Edited June 5, 2007 by bozodog

[hitest]

Whoa, thanks for the tip, bozodog! I've got a 4 year old in daycare.

[TheTerrorist_75]

http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/medical/a...d_sanitizer.htm

Comments: True. On May 14, 2007, Fox23-TV in Tulsa reported that 4-year-old Halle Butler of Okmulgee, Oklahoma was hospitalized with symptoms of intoxication after ingesting a small amount of hand sanitizer in her pre-kindergarten classroom.

The product, which consists of 62% ethyl alcohol (more than most hard liquors), had been applied to the children's hands by their teacher just before lunchtime, but instead of rubbing it in, Halle licked it off her skin and essentially got drunk. She was fine once the alcohol had worked its way through her system, but the incident threw such a fright into parents and administrators alike that further use of the product was banned in the school.

I should note that the email contains one apparent factual error (or perhaps it's only a typo), namely that the Halle's blood alcohol level was measured at "85%" in the emergency room -- an impossibly high percentage. The author probably intended to write ".085"

A similar mishap was reported last January in Minneapolis, where 2-year-old Sydney Moe ate some of the hand sanitizer gel her mother kept by the sink and was rushed to the emergency room with a blood alcohol concentration of .10 percent -- legally drunk, by the statutes in most states. She, too, recovered quickly, but the Minnesota Poison Control Center warned that the high alcohol content of hand sanitizers and other common household products such as mouthwash and perfumes can pose a serious health threat to small children and should be kept out of their reach except under parental supervision. Some hand sanitizers contain isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol instead of ethyl alcohol, making them even more dangerous to ingest.

[blim]

Whoa, makes me thankful I've always said, "soap is soap" and never bought those liquid sanitizers, but forwarding the info on to my sisters who have lil' ones.

Thanks,

Liz

[martymas]

is there no warning for

little ones

the options look bleak for children

the sanitizer or germs

which is the safest

marty

Edited June 6, 2007 by martymas

[Bubba Bob]

Whoa, makes me thankful I've always said, "soap is soap" and never bought those liquid sanitizers, but forwarding the info on to my sisters who have lil' ones.

Thanks,

Liz

That's the way to do it, Blim. Antibacterials are way over used these days.

[JDoors]

What am I missing? Even if the little one drank a small bottle of the stuff it wouldn't result in a blood alcohol level high enough to be dangerous, let alone lethal. Maybe in an infant, but a baby's not likely to be sucking down a bottle of sanitizer.

... it needs be kept in mind that a 2005 study of 292 families by Children's Hospital Boston (in which one-half of the subjects got hand sanitizers, while the other half received literature advising them to wash their hands frequently) found that those who used hand sanitizer gels experienced a 59% reduction in gastrointestinal illnesses, and that increased use of sanitizers corresponded with a decreased spread of contagions (including those resulting in respiratory illnesses).

I don't necessarily advocate the use of hand sanitizers, I don't use them myself and I work with the public (I prefer to catch the occasional bug and let my immune system "learn" to deal with it), but to NOT use them AT ALL because someone, somewhere, MIGHT get sick if they swallow it? That's excessive.

Edited June 6, 2007 by JDoors